


Delirium

by hypnoshatesme



Series: Embrace Insanity [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Implied Sexual Content, Other, Spiral Gerry, nameless meals this time bc i was too lazy to decide on any, none of them are having a good time, uhhhh idk Gerry's just learning to vibe rly, wish I knew what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:40:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypnoshatesme/pseuds/hypnoshatesme
Summary: Gerry puts himself back together after un-becoming (or becoming?) and finds some joy in his new existance. So does Michael, really.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Series: Embrace Insanity [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1873405
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	Delirium

**Author's Note:**

> I was worried this wouldn't get done before I leave on sunday but clearly my worries were unwarrented because SpiralGerry has taken over my brain.

Gerry didn’t remember falling asleep - or how sleep was supposed to feel like, really - but when his eyes opened all he saw was colours and patterns. It could be the hallways, but it felt like those were inside his eyes rather than around him, only occasionally letting him catch a glance of the actual hallway. He felt strange, the floor or wall he was laying on or leaning against so incredibly soft and he wanted to merge with it and it seemed strangely possible for that to happen. He felt like he was floating, like he was trapped in an ever-moving kaleidoscope, going round and round, gently. He felt like his mind had left his body and his body his mind, both leaving him behind, whatever _him_ even meant at this point.

He didn’t see Michael, but he felt it sitting down next to him, not the way he used to, the static and confusion - everything was static and confusion around him - but just a _knowing_ that it was there, right beside him. Thinking too much about it was worthless - Gerry couldn’t really _think_ in the first place and he honestly was more bothered by the way that some stray thoughts still made it through the colours - so he just wordlessly slipped into Michael’s lap - moving felt strange, his _body_ felt strange - and he assumed he sat up, or maybe Michael pulled him into a sitting position, he wouldn’t know. What he did know was that he could feel Michael against his back and he leaned into it with a sigh, head lolling to rest against its shoulder, or whatever it was.

"Fuck, Michael.” Gerry licked his lips - tasted wrong, all he tasted was colour - trying to listen to his own words. He wasn’t sure if he was actually speaking, his ears felt stuffed with geometry. “I feel like I'm tripping."

"You are." Michael sounded far away, but its voice did make it through the messy haze that was Gerry’s mind. Or Gerry in general, and he was glad about it.

"How long?" His mouth felt so fucking dry and colourful.

"However long it takes,” it mumbled and it sounded closer, now. It took Gerry’s hand and ran its thumb over his knuckles, the tiny eyes that were still, unmistakably, eyes. Michael frowned. It could see the slight distortion, but it was barely noticeable. 

Gerry, on his part, hummed at the touch. He felt overall uncomfortable, but the worst patches were the ones with the tattoos. It wasn’t exactly pain, but it felt like something was being sucked in or out, like the tattoos was twisting and collapsing on themselves. Michael’s touches felt soothing. 

"The Beholder had a stronger grip on you than I thought…" 

Gerry took a moment to answer, had to wait for the words to reach him and then for their meaning to translate from the buzzing shapes words always seemed to hold lately. "It kept trying to get me...told me it'll help with my mother…" He frowned. It always sounded strange to talk about the past as _his_ past. He wasn’t that person anymore. He wasn’t anymore in general. Just somewhere in between being. Sometimes he still wondered about that past, though. "Do you...do you think it would've helped?"

Michael’s fingers ran through Gerry’s hair and the strands twitched at the touch. Gerry only felt vaguely aware of any of it, there didn’t seem to be enough of him to feel much. 

"The Watcher doesn't help," Michael chuckled, high and strained.

Gerry felt his lips pull into a grin and he moved his head, too fast and too quick, but not yet too far, to look at where he assumed Michael’s face was. He caught a glimpse of its messy eye, and Gerry had no idea how exactly he knew the difference between the twisting spirals of its eye and the ones that were blocking his vision most of the time. "What about the Distortion?” Gerry’s hand moved to what wasn’t its face, fingers finding lips that no longer felt awfully wrong with everything else making no sense anyways. He didn’t remember how his hand had gotten there, didn’t recall wanting to reach out at all. “Is this help?" 

Gerry didn’t know what he meant but he didn’t care. Michael’s lips felt good under his fingers, even if the feeling felt a step to the left of Gerry.

"That really depends on the perspective." It felt amused, or maybe sounded, Gerry’s senses were all muddled anyways. He felt it press its lips against his fingertips and Gerry wondered why he felt teeth. There was curiosity when it spoke again after what felt like a second and a year at the same time, "Do you regret your decision already?"

Gerry didn’t know regret, only the vague shape of the word as it used to feel before it was exploding colours and melting patterns. The grin on his lip was wide, maybe too wide, not that he’d know. "No. Not when I'm in such good company." 

He leaned forward, trying to find Michael’s lips with his own. He didn’t know whether he succeeded, but Michael’s mouth was against his after a moment and he kissed it hungrily. Hunger was still somewhat clear to Gerry, though he didn’t know for what, only knew that kissing Michael blacked out the last pesky thoughts that tried to make sense of what was happening, of himself when really there wasn’t much _self_ left and it didn’t matter in the first place. 

He did quite enjoy the kissing in general, even if that enjoyment felt like an echo and he sometimes wasn’t sure whether it _was_ his. _His_ was a stubborn and unnecessary concept and Gerry gladly invited Michael’s oddly-shaped tongue into his mouth to shut it up. It felt different every time, and made _him_ feel different every time as he sucked on it, twisted his own tongue around it - maybe through it, he couldn’t tell. Had his tongue always been able to move like this? - and Michael made pleasant little noises that made his ears ring and ache - he wasn’t sure if it was a good kind of ache or not, but he wanted more of it. Gerry felt the closest to something and nothing when Michael kissed him like this, he felt empty in the most pleasant way and filled by the delightful insignificance of identity. 

Michael tasted good, the static having given way to nuances of nothing and white noise, things Gerry felt more than tasted, somehow everything at once and nothing at all and it was what Gerry wished to taste - feel - in his mouth forever. And sometimes, he did. Today, Michael pulled away after a fraction of forever so small Gerry felt his face pull into a disappointed grimace at it. His head was still spinning, spiralling - in a sense, it always was now, but this was better, _more_ \- but he could feel it getting slower.

"Mhm," it hummed and maybe there was a chuckle somewhere in there. It was amused as it brushed Gerry’s hair behind his ear, sharp finger scraping against his skin, smoothing the disappointed expression into something more pleased. Though expressions seemed rather unclear on Gerry’s face, by now. It followed the line of his jaw, feeling skin and bone that had stopped being that for some time now singing under its fingers, something that felt quite similar to the staticy feeling coming off Michael’s not-skin. "I need to leave for a bit."

"Leave?" A surge of panic, but out of reach. Gerry felt like most of his feelings were out of reach, like he had scattered into a million pieces and had not yet managed to put himself back together. Maybe he wasn't quite sure how. Maybe he didn’t care to try.

Michael’s lips brushed the corner of Gerry’s mouth. "Getting food. This...took quite a bit out of me."

It still was, as the Eye was clearly not going to let go off Gerry easily. It wasn’t an active struggle against it, it didn’t have any power in the hallways and Gerry was very much Spiral by now. But it still refused to take its mark back, Michael still felt it on him even if it was under a lot of distortion. The mark wasn’t quite distorted, not yet, not fully. It’s what was slowing this down, why Gerry was still blind because the Eye wanted him to _see_ and Michael didn’t want it to have its way. Michael wouldn’t let it. Gerry was his, had chosen it over the Beholder, and Michael wanted him to become whatever the Spiral would twist him into. 

The thrill of endless possibilities about the details made it vibrate and melt into the hallway sometimes. But all of it was taking energy and power and Michael was hungry. It wondered if Gerry was, too, or if he was still too far removed to feel the urge to feed. It was hard to tell. Gerry couldn’t tell, Michael knew.

"Are you bringing somebody in here?" There was an edge to Gerry’s voice and the words hung between them for a moment, twisting anxiously before dissolving. It made Michael smile.

"Yes."

"Can...they see me?"

"No."

Gerry seemed to think for a moment before asking, “Can I hear them?”

“Do you want to?”

Gerry’s grip on wanting as a concept was shaky, but he nodded anyways, skin crawling at the thought of hearing anything from outside again. Outside seemed like a different life and Gerry was as intrigued by it as he dreaded it. He wondered if it would bring back anything in him or if he wouldn’t notice much at all. So many options. Gerry was excited, thrilled, and Michael felt his fingers clutch in its face where his hands were still resting. They still felt surprisingly human, considering all, but Michael could feel their true shape, the lie right underneath the skin, could feel the promise of sharp tips that might puncture eventually. 

They had time. This wasn’t a race, necessarily, even if Gerry’s lack of patience might suggest so. But Michael had time, and it moved its lips to kiss Gerry’s hand on its cheek before dislodging them with its own fingers and removing itself from underneath Gerry. He noticed, but not because of anything that should have indicated Michael was gone. With a sigh, Gerry leaned against the wall that hadn’t been there a moment before, looking up at where the suggestion of Michael seemed to be standing. He gave it a crooked grin and Michael returned it before opening a door that had joined them a minute ago and walking through it.

*

The noises were familiar and strangely clear in Gerry’s ears. He had heard them before, distressed panting, frantic looking back - did that always make a sound? - and the thud thud thud of steps that kept getting quicker until they were running and running and Gerry remembered stepping in to help, to try to save - how many people had it worked with? How many just had their demise postponed? - and Gerry didn't feel that urge now and didnt feel guilty about not feeling it, but he felt the empty space where those feelings would have been and it made him feel strange. 

His mouth felt tight - was he scowling? How often had he been the one panting and running and pushing back the looming fear? Trying to find an escape? When had he started? There had been so much running all of Gerry’s life and suddenly his legs ached with the memory that felt twice removed and he felt off. Like the thoughts cutting through his mind weren’t really _his_ , not compatible with Gerry. He didn’t know what to make of it.

"You’re crying."

Gery hadn't noticed Michael approaching but it was sitting right next to him now. Gerry's hand moved to his face but his fingers didn't feel anything but the usual dull static his skin seemed to emit and he frowned, confused.

Michael watched as Gerry’s fingers ran right through the melting drops of colour flowing from his eyes, making it look like his eyes were melting down his cheeks. "You can't feel it. But you're crying." 

Michael’s arm wrapped around him and it pulled him close. Gerry let his head fall to the side, letting it come to rest against Michael’s shoulder. The person running through the hallways was calling out again, voice laced with dread and fear and Gerry knew he should know the feeling of being unable to decide whether it would make things better or worse to get an answer to calling out. He had been in such situations before. He didn’t remember. They were banging their fists against the wall now.

"You don't feel it, do you?" Michael’s voice seemed less whole, more buzz. The way it did when it wasn't quite corporal anymore. But Gerry still felt its shoulder and its side against him.

"I feel...something,” he mumbled and his voice also sounded different, but it always did to him. The high-pitched sound of shattering glass hit his ears, followed by a scream of pain.

"Do you want to stop hearing them?” Michael asked, fingertips running through what was going for tears. It felt like a caress and Gerry closed his useless eyes with a hum. Michael’s fingers came away black, but the colour quickly dissolved in the air.

"No."

So they sat and listened until the voice of the person running through the hallways was hoarse and their breathing ragged and Michael was satisfied. The sound faded and Gerry didn't ask what that meant. He wondered what their name had been but he knew names were meaningless.

*

Gerry was starting to feel better, less like his skin was the wrong shape for his body, like his body was the wrong shape for him, for itself. He wandered the hallways trying to get used to the new feeling. He was still blinded by endless patterns and impossible colours but, surprisingly, he never ran into a wall. He felt his way along them, sure, but he felt turns appear when he wanted to go right or left. Or whatever direction, really. Gerry did not question it.

His tattoos still felt strained. Michael would often rub its fingers over them or kiss them, happy to see that some of the smaller ones were starting to barely look like eyes. It was a slow process but the grip of the Watcher was slipping which was satisfying. Gerry was happy to hear that, in a way, but the news did little to make him feel less uncomfortable. 

Michael’s touches did and it was always a relief when it told him to lie down so it could run its fingers and lips up and down his aching spine. Gerry wondered if his body was actually melting in those instances or if it just felt like it. Did he know how melting felt? The question didn't seem too important when he could feel Michael’s impossible lips and tongue running over each eye, leaving them buzzing pleasantly rather than feeling like skin was being pulled thin over each joint. Gerry wished it would stay like that but it always went back to the uncomfortable feeling after a while. So he relished it while he could, enjoyed the long, sharp fingers running over his back and arms, digging into muscle in what could maybe be called a massage. It felt nice. 

Michael stopped, suddenly, hands and lips gone from Gerry’s skin in the blink of an eye. Gerry wasn't thinking when he turned around to complain. Michael was still straddling his hips and overall the movement felt even more foreign than the usual strangeness Gerry felt while moving. He forgot he meant to complain because of it but not for long. 

His tone was accusing, and he might have been pouting when he said, "You stopped." 

"Somebody nearly opened the door…" Michael mumbled and looked back down at him. "Oh." It sounded...surprised? Gerry could feel a sudden excitement that he was fairly sure wasn't his. "You shouldn't be able to bend like this."

"Like what?" Gerry tried looking down at himself but his eyes were still blocked by Memphis patterns.

Michael didn't answer, but kissed his mouth and Gerry tasted the excited glee now and then it was his own, too, because it was difficult to not get excited with Michael seemingly vibrating with it against him. He didn't really care what exactly it was that got it like this but Gerry approved as it pressed itself against him and he could feel its form against his lower back, but also his chest at the same time and it didn't occur to him to wonder about that when Michael coaxed his mouth open and its hands were back on his body and Gerry returned all of it eagerly, lost in the shared excitement. 

Gerry had little sense of where he ended and Michael began, or even the hallway, that seemed to melt around him - or maybe he was melting into it? - didn’t know which limbs were his when they seemed to be impossibly tangled up in each other. Gerry’s body felt foreign and at the same time closer than it had before but Gerry’s head was too empty to think about anything besides the blurring edges between Michael and him and the space around them.

*

Gerry’s sight was starting to clear and he was surprisingly unbothered by the hallways as they unleashed their full magnificent terror upon his eyes. It was familiar. He remembered vaguely how in the very beginning, when he first stepped inside, his head had felt like it would combust. And maybe it had. But Gerry now wasn't Gerry then and he had spent enough time wandering these corridors, following the walls with his hands, exploring the twists and turns without seeing them. 

So the sight felt familiar, even if there were many new details, framed pictures that seemed to shift and change when he looked away, sometimes as he looked. Sometimes there were stray plants or other decorative items on or by the walls, that also changed and twisted. Sometimes subtly, sometimes wildly and sometimes it became unclear what was up or down or left or right as the walls all morphed into looking the same and distinctly different. 

It was fascinating and it filled Gerry with a strange kind of joy as he looked at the twisting patterns, the loose spirals that would sometimes fill the air. It was beautiful.

And then there were the mirrors. Gerry had been aware of the mirrors even before he stepped into the hallway...how long ago? He found no part in himself that still cared. He hadn’t seen them when he did step inside, too transfixed by his own art on the headache-inducing walls. But now he found them, saw them. There was scarcely a wall without mirrors and each showed him somebody else, each a different kind of twisted caricature of what wasn’t him. Ot maybe it was.

Gerry found a mirror that did not seem to actively distort much. How he knew that was simple: he didn’t. Still, what he saw looked distinctly like himself, as far as he had a grasp on that. It was easier now, to accept things and thoughts that made no sense and seemed to have no point. Himself was one of them. But Gerry didn’t _feel_ the way he looked in that mirror. He looked too much like the somewhat blotched memory of Gerry before, and yet he looked strangely unlike it. Gerry had never been wiry as an adult and he did not look wiry now, except he did, but he also didn’t. He somehow looked...too long. His neck and arms and legs, if he looked at them from a certain angle, just looked out of proportion. But they weren’t. They didn’t _feel_ like it.

His hands seemed accurate in the mirror, sharp - not like Michael’s, shorter, but also longer than they had been, and, in the mirror, longer than they felt. He ran his hands through his hair, watched the ink stains that had once been eyes on his knuckles and were now - what? Not quite spirals, which had disappointed Michael, but more like something had sucked in the ink from within, twisting it into some kind of swirling pattern. None looked the same, and that Michael seemed to like. Gerry did, too, and he watched them disappear into hair that didn’t look black despite very much being black. 

He had first thought it was the usually bright colours and patterns of the hallway reflecting on it, but by now Gerry was fairly sure that it was his hair. Colours and shapes seemed to have weaved themselves through the black, shimmering through it in the right light. The hallway’s light was never right, but Gerry could still see the suggestion of colour that wasn’t and was black at the same time. It didn’t feel any different to him and he felt like it should if the mirror was showing him an approximation of the truth. Sometimes, he thought he caught spirals in his eyebrows out of the corner of his eye. 

His eyes seemed to be doing something similar, except more obvious. The brown was tinged with colours, some Gerry remembered from his time blinded by shapes, some he never knew the names of. Names didn’t matter. The changing of the colours was often off-synch and only partly happening, and Gerry watched once, with a thrill that was equal parts horror and fascination, as the colour spread to the whites of his eyes, and they looked nearly like Michael’s, then, just without the constant whirring shapes within. They had been back to dark brown when he blinked. 

Gerry didn’t feel the urge to blink anymore, but he sometimes still did, more as a habit. Maybe to not forget. Maybe to try and make what he saw match how he felt. How did Gerry feel? What did he think the mirror should show? He couldn’t tell.

“Admiring yourself?” Michael’s arms materialised around him, the rest of it coming into shape right behind Gerry. He watched in the mirror as the cracking static and flowing spirals took on Michael’s familiar form, its eyes, that weren’t quite in the right spot yet, meeting Gerry’s in the mirror. Its grin was too wide, overlapping one of its eyes. Gerry returned it, and it didn’t look quite right, either. But it felt right. He frowned again.

“I don’t...feel like I look.” That didn’t really cover it, but he didn’t know how else to explain the dissonance he felt looking into this mirror.

Michael hummed thoughtfully and its fingers spread out on his chest, thumb tracing the eye over his heart that was still recognisable if you squint hard enough, his middle finger gently scraping over what remained of the one on his throat, now little more than a black swirl. Gerry sighed and leaned back into it. Everything seemed inconsequential when it was this close and he forgot they were having a conversation until it spoke up again.

“You still think in facts,” it murmured as it pressed its face into the curve of his neck. It fit perfectly, like it had always belonged there. Its other hand was on his hips and Gerry couldn’t remember if it had been there before, but he liked the feeling of it rubbing the tattoos there. They didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore, but Michael’s touch still felt good. “You still think too much in general.” Its lips felt too hard against his skin when it pressed a quick kiss against his neck before standing up straight again.

Gerry grinned and let his head fall back against its shoulder. “Then make it stop.”

He felt the low chuckle from Michael in his bones, or whatever it was he had by now. “I can’t just kiss you eternally.” It kissed his temple and its lips were too soft now, nearly liquid. 

Gerry looked up at it instead of the mirror, a teasing glint in his many-coloured eyes. “I didn’t know there were things you ‘can’t’.” A lie, but Gerry was in a playful mood. Michael grinned and its eyes were sparkling.

“I can, but wouldn’t it be nice if you’d finally let go of that last sliver of humanity still clinging to you? It must feel horribly restraining, by now.”

Gerry laughed at how right it was and at how he somehow made the Distortion tell him such a straightforward truth. It tightened its grip around him and its face was mostly grin by now. His eyes were on its pointy teeth.

“Working on it.” Was he? Gerry wasn’t quite sure. He brought his hand up to Michael’s hair, twisting his fingers into it until he wasn’t quite sure where they ended and Michael’s fractal curls began. His arm shouldn’t bend that way. He pulled Michael’s face closer. “Can I still get that kiss? For moral support?”

Michael huffed - maybe a laugh, it was hard to tell - at that before tipping Gerry’s chin up and back, too far, but Gerry didn’t mind, before kissing him. Gerry was sure that its lips were still wrong, but he was rather happy with what he got.

*

Gerry could see the person this time. She hadn’t freaked out quite as quickly as the last one Michael had brought into the hallway. Or maybe Gerry had only started picking up on the stressed noises of that one when they had gotten loud enough. His senses hadn’t been at their best back then. 

They were better now, even though he still occasionally saw stray shapes passing his vision. But most of the time, it was clear, and so he watched with Michael as the woman’s steps grew a little quicker as she walked down the endless hallway, paused at every twist it took, looked back, unsure whether she should go back before she got lost. Gerry knew, of course, that she had been lost the moment she had stepped through that yellow door. He felt no pity. He was curious how long she’d take to start running.

She stopped at what Gerry liked to call the gallery when it was in that particular constellation: all of the pictures he had drawn right next to each other. He still didn’t know if the lines were actually moving or not, but he liked watching them when he found himself there. Or when he found one of the pictures on its own. There was something fascinating about it, something he felt he could watch forever. He had wondered if that same pull would work on humans, if they would abandon all to stare at those maddening patterns until their bodies simply stopped supporting their decision and they’d drop dead. He sat up straighter when he saw her approach the frames. Maybe he’d find out soon.

Her eyes went wide as she looked at the pictures and she froze, eyebrows drawing together to squint at them, probably to try and make out if the movement was actually happening. Gerry watched her approach, fingers outstretched to touch the glass. They went right through it and the lines detached themselves from the drawing, slithering up her fingers instead.

“Never happened to me.”

Michael chuckled. “It would if you’d tell them to.” 

Gerry rolled his eyes, but grinned. “So they’re not only decorative?”

“Nothing is only what it seems in here, Gerry.”

It was Gerry’s turn to chuckle and he leaned his head against Michael’s shoulder, watching as the woman didn’t scream, but made a surprised, somewhat strangled noise, stumbling back. She looked at her hands and the patterns were still there, moving - maybe - as they were on the picture that looked perfectly undisturbed. Now she did scream as she shook her hand and ran, trying to get away from the pictures. It wasn’t working.

“Guess she doesn’t appreciate my art,” Gerry mumbled, still feeling like the scream should make him feel things he didn’t feel. It was a faint sense of wrongness. It didn't necessarily bother him but he felt a little odd as he watched her nearly run into a wall.

"No taste."

Gerry laughed at that. He wondered if she had a taste to Michael. Did everybody's fear have a distinct taste?

"I think I'll play with this one a little," Michael got up in a fluid motion, looking down at Gerry as it stood. "Do you want to come with me?"

Did Gerry want to join Michael in driving the woman insane? Yes. No. It didn't feel right. Gerry felt like he didn't want to get closer to the panicking woman. He shook his head.

"I'd rather watch you."

"Still a bit of a beholder, hm?" Its laughter was ear-piercing. Gerry saw the woman freeze as the sound reached her. He wondered if Michael had done that on purpose. He looked up at Michael with a cheeky grin.

"The only thing I want to behold is you."

Michael's face flushed a bright red before switching to highlighter yellow. It didn't stay that for very long, either. Michael didn't fluster easily and as far as Gerry could tell, the colours were never the same. Sometimes only its freckles lit up. Sometimes Michael simply glitched out of existence for a moment. Gerry felt like he'd never witness every option but that didn't mean he couldn't try to see as many as he could.

"My beholder, then," it mumbled, still sounding a little yellow as it bent down to press a kiss to Gerry’s lips.

Gerry hummed. "Have fun."

"I always have."

He couldn't exactly tell what Michael was doing, couldn't comprehend its movements and the shapes it was taking to make the woman run faster as she kept looking back, sure that there was something, and sometimes seeing a _something_ but sometimes not seeing anything. Gerry wondered if one day he would be able to understand Michael but he felt no urge to reach such a point, not really. He liked that Michael was still as incomprehensible as it had always been. 

He could feel, however, could feel Michael’s glee, its thrill as it appeared and disappeared and warped and collapsed and glitches and the person grew mode and more agitated, fear clear on her features. He felt something else, too, that seemed to be somewhat unrelated to Michael, a faint warmth from the walls, a tingling in his fingertips. It felt good and Gerry wanted to taste more of it - was it a taste? It was too faint to tell what it was but he licked his lips and they felt less dry and he tried to focus on that weak sensation under his skin.

The woman was sobbing when Michael appeared next to Gerry again. "Do you feel it?"

Gerry looked at it. Michael hadn’t quite manifested right, sharp edges soft as they frayed and melted into the air. One of its shoulders was missing, replaced by twisting spirals and other shapes, moving quickly, frantically. "I feel...something. It’s faint."

"You'll get there." Michael’s voice was little more than colour by now.

Gerry smiled, glad that looking at it didn’t hurt anymore. "You're dissolving."

He was fairly sure he didn’t actually _hear_ what Michael said next. "It's exciting."

Gerry chuckled, leaning back. "Don’t let me stop you.”

And it did just that - or didn’t, rather - and Gerry sat in the middle of patterned colours and coloured patterns, twisting and turning and laughing a high pitched sound that would have made his nose bleed if Gerry had still been human. He probably wouldn’t have identified it as a laugh then, either. As it was now, he leaned back with a grin enjoying the vague feeling of Michael all around him.

*

Gerry found himself looking at his pictures a lot once he figured out the hallway would take him to them if he wanted it to. Well, at least it would most of the times. He was wondering if he could still draw. He was starting to have a grip on his body again - on his new body, that sometimes just twisted a bit too far when all he really wanted was subtly look over his shoulder - and he was starting to wonder if he could hold his shape long enough to draw, if he could focus on both at the same time. 

Would drawing even work the same in here? Would it feel different? If his fingers accidentally went sharp halfway through he might accidentally cut through the pen. He had stabbed Michael’s face recently when all he had wanted to do was free its eyebrow from a particularly stubborn curl. Michael had found it incredibly funny. Gerry had, too, but also a little frustrating. He’d like to at least somewhat know what his body was doing.

“Can I draw in here?” He asked into the empty space around him. Michael approached walking, this time, from where Gerry didn’t know and it also looked like it wasn’t actually touching the floor, despite him hearing steps.

“Of course.” There was a door where Gerry’s pictures had just hung and Gerry had no worries in opening it. The desk and everything behind it looked eerily like his set-up at no-longer-home. Or maybe rather never-home.

“How do you do that?” He mumbled as he approached the desk and sat down. There was a strange dissonance in it, sitting in this place he had spent hours sitting in and also never sat in because then it hadn’t been surrounded by these walls that seemed to never stop changing, the air hadn’t been filled with static, except when it had because Michael had been watching.

“I just do.”

Gerry looked back to it. It was still leaning against the doorframe. “Can I do it, too?”

“You can try.” It shrugged and detached itself from the frame with what could generously be called a noise akin to velcro. “The hallway seems to like you.”

Gerry raised an eyebrow and it went too far. He pulled it back. “Aren’t you the hallway?”

“And it is me.” Michael nodded as it came to a stop next to him.

“Do you _seem_ to like me, too, then?” A teasing grin accompanied the question.

It was returned in equal, Michael’s fingers starting to twist strands of his hair. “Oh, I’m as sure as anything ever gets that I do.”

“So you and the hallway can hold different opinions?” Gerry didn’t really care for answers, he had a new appreciation for talking to Michael. The conversations were so wonderfully meaningless.

“It didn’t like it when I brought something so close to the Eye in here.” Its thumb brushed Gerry’s ear.

“That’s fixed now,” he hummed.

“You usually can find your way to your drawings already.” It shrugged. “Just try something else.”

It had a point. “Hm...will do.” Gerry reached up to take its hand and looked up at it. “But for now...do you want to watch me draw again?”

Michael gave him a wide grin, squeezing his hand. “Gladly. I’ll never grow tired of watching you.”

“Is that why you never blink?”

It laughed. “Partly.”

The familiarity of it all shouldn’t have felt so odd, really, but it did. Not in a bad way. Then again, odd had ceased to have much of a negative connotation a while ago. Gerry found back into his drawing quickly, muscle memory taking over where his mind had lost all consistency. So it did feel a little different. But also the same. 

They chatted this time - had they before? Gerry couldn’t really remember - as Michael watched, sometimes sitting, or perching somewhere, sometimes hovering behind Gerry, sometimes over him. Space had long lost its meaning and Gerry didn’t question whether he was even on anything that could go for a floor. 

It was easy to draw and talk at the same time, and slowly but surely - and neither - it became rather easy to force his body into a semblance of consistency. It wasn’t pleasant, necessarily, but Gerry was pleased with the fact that he could. Michael, for its part, seemed delighted by it, too, if only so it could figure out new ways to make Gerry’s grip falter. Gerry didn’t mind. It usually involved its lips and tongue and fingers, and Gerry could never have enough of those.

*

Gerry did try and see if he could manipulate the hallways as Michael did, with mixed results. It was clear that it was mostly humouring him, accepting his changes nine times out of ten. The tenth time tended to end in something completely different than what he had thought of. It became a kind of game, to see if he could, if not outsmart it, then at least come up with something so deliciously twisted it simply had to follow through with it. 

Michael seemed thoroughly amused by all of it, and Gerry wasn’t sure if it was helping him or the hallway sometimes. One way or another, it was fun, and soon enough Gerry could at least navigate the hallway as Michael did and - nine times out of ten - end up exactly where he wanted to be. 

Not that Gerry wanted to _be_ anywhere, really. It was all lies anyways. But he had started to try and refine what he had come to call his human appearance in front of that mirror. It had started, as most things Gerry did by that point, randomly. He hadn’t spent much time in front of the mirror anymore, quite enjoying feeling rather than seeing. But when he passed it again he was surprised by the lack of that strange dissonance he had experienced before. He definitely didn’t look like he had anymore, certainly not like he should had his body still been human. But it yielded to his will now so Gerry found himself wondering how close he could get to that blurry image he remembered of himself, when _himself_ had still been heavy with consequences.

He would sometimes get lost in making himself look anything but human - it did look interesting, though Gerry didn’t quite get the same thrill out of it as when he watched Michael do it - but Gerry didn’t feel time anymore and so he enjoyed some kind of self-sculpting, seeing how close he could get to passing for human, how many little details he had to think of for the picture to be perfect, at least for hallway standards. It was difficult to tell, and Michael’s opinion seemed of little value considering it could tell Gerry wasn’t human anyways. And its own definition on humanity had been shaky in the first place, if Gerry recalled correctly. 

He wondered how this would work outside, or at least on a human. Gerry started feeling strangely restless.

“You’re hungry,” was its answer to when Gerry couldn’t remember trying to explain how he felt. Apparently he had. Or maybe Michael simply knew. 

Gerry couldn’t tell whether he was hungry or not. He couldn’t remember hunger and he certainly couldn’t remember having felt this specific kind of restlessness before, either.

“I don’t feel hungry,” he mumbled, dragging his lips further down Michael’s chest, hands running down its sides, that seemed to have some struggle deciding on a shape right now, a constant anticipating shifting under Gerry’s sharp, sharp fingertips. 

Gerry hadn’t even started yet. Michael could be surprisingly sensitive. It opened its mouth to speak again, but its breath hitched as Gerry tongue flicked over its nipple, that was surprisingly close to where it should be, for now. Gerry still didn’t know where all those breathy noises Michael could make came from considering it didn’t breathe, but by now he had just accepted that if it was in any way unexpected or made no sense, Michael would probably do it. Gerry was rather fond of those noises anyways.

Its fingers twisted in Gerry’s undulating hair. “You’ll understand.”

Gerry grinned, squeezing its thighs. “And here I thought understanding wasn’t really our thing.” 

Whatever answer it had got stuck in its throat, maybe literally, as Gerry sucked in its nipple, teeth grazing it as Gerry’s fingers moved up its thighs.

*

The next person that stumbled through the yellow door was a man that already looked significantly distressed the moment the door closed behind him. Michael had made him go through that door personally and whatever it had done to achieve that had clearly taken a toll on the man who looked around in surprised confusion that was already tinged with the kind of underlying terror the last person had only shown after a while. 

Gerry was eager to feel whatever Michael had found so exciting, but it was little more than that faint, warm tingle as he watched him growing more and more panicked as he walked. Gerry itched to _do_ something about it, a familiar sensation - impatience? - suddenly at the forefront of his perception. There was a human in the hallway and Gerry still hadn’t gotten to try out if what he considered passable as human in that mirror worked. A human was in the hallway and Gerry felt the urge to speed up the process, to make his eyes go wide with fear, to make him run and run and run like Michael had with that last person. It had had so much fun. Gerry wanted to have fun.

“Can I try something out?” Gerry mumbled, turning towards Michael with a wicked grin, eyes glinting mischievously before settling into a solid dark brown and staying like that. His hair stopped twisting and went black, losing the shimmering colours. His fingers looked shorter and less pointy, body and face back to what he remembered to be appropriate for humans. 

His body never went as far as Michael’s, but when he didn’t actively bother with keeping it together - and why would he in the hallways? - it was rather obvious that he wasn’t human. Which wouldn’t work for what Gerry meant to do. 

Michael grinned at him, impressed at how fluently Gerry shifted by now. It looked rather lovely, fluid where Michael was all jagged. A perfect lie, considering Gerry could be just as sharp as Michael.

“Oh? What do you want to do?” It wasn’t necessarily surprised about Gerry wanting to do something, he had been rather restless after all. But part of Michael had thought that maybe Gerry would just stay the kind to sit back and watch rather than get involved, that maybe that part of him simply went much deeper than the Eye’s mark. Maybe Michael had been wrong. It loved being wrong, especially when that somehow ended in Gerry directing such an expression at it. It was grinning widely.

“Make me a door to the gallery. One he can’t see.” In theory, Gerry could do so himself, but the hallway still was rather arbitrary in which of his wishes it fulfilled and how. He ran a hand through his hair. “Make him go there.”

Michael’s eyebrows disappeared in its hairline in interest. “That...sounds promising.”

Gerry pressed a lingering kiss to its cheek - he didn’t struggle to reach it anymore, though usually he quite liked keeping something close to his original height and letting Michael come to him instead - before stepping back with a wink. “You’ll see.”

He opened the door he had felt appear just behind him and stepped through.

It was easy to act like everything was normal, except Gerry’s recollection of what had gone for normal before was a little hazy. But acting like he was perfectly comfortable in the hallway needed little to no effort. This _was_ normal to him now, the walls that never stayed the same for long and sometimes simply ceased to be walls. They seemed to be changing more subtly now, a sense of curious excitement in the air. Gerry wondered if the man would feel it, too.

He could hear the steps, a little hurried, but not quite running. Gerry turned towards the pictures and schooled his expression into one of...he hadn’t really thought about what would be appropriate in this situation. What was the normal expression for looking at perfectly ordinary art? He smiled at the newest pieces he had finished for a moment. He was rather fond of them. They _felt_ different. They felt worse in the best way, in a way that only something created within the hallway could. Smiling was maybe not appropriate. 

He tried mild interest instead, not quite bored, but not too in awe either. A sliver of intrigue, maybe. He felt a thrill run down his spine at the prospect of finally being able to try out what he had practiced in front of the mirror. Was it reasonable to be this excited? What did reasonable even mean in here? Nothing. Gerry didn’t turn around when he could hear the steps coming to a stop to his left - or was it his right? - and he could hear him breathing, a bit quickly, but not quite distressed. Yet. 

Gerry could feel his eyes on him, feel his reluctance at the sight. He took it as a sign that he looked normal enough to make the man question what he was seeing. Gerry really shouldn’t feel this excited about it. 

He kept ignoring the man that seemed to have decided to approach, tentatively. Gerry was too lost looking at the drawing to notice, of course. That seemed reasonable. He tried looking more intrigued now, even though most of his face was obscured by hair.

“H...Hello?” The walls swallowed the shaky noise, which made the man freeze. But Gerry still heard it and he turned towards him, casually, a crease of mild annoyance at being interrupted between his brows. The man seemed to jump at the sight, but Gerry couldn’t find anything in his face that would indicate anything looking _wrong_. It was just the same reaction he used to get from people when he looked at them. Gerry was struggling to not let his scowl curl into a grin.

“What is it?” The slightly distorted quality of his voice could easily be excused by the staticy hallway. It was closer to his original voice than he had managed before.

The man frowned, squinting at him, hope mixing into his tight expression of confusion. “You...are real?”

Michael would have made that a philosophical discussion, but Gerry had a different idea of where he wanted to take this.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“This...this place-” He was sweating, eyes darting from wall to wall, lingering on the pictures for a moment, making him lose track of his words. Gerry allowed himself a small, satisfied smile, before going back to his irritated expression.

“What about this place?” He sounded impatient, and he didn’t even have to try very hard to achieve that.

He looked back at Gerry and looked relieved. “I...it has no exit. There...there was a door, I...I think? B-but...it...it went away and now...I-” He swallowed, “I don’t know how long I’ve been walking, but...the...the corridor has no end and, and...if…” He was breathing harder now, working himself up as he tried to piece together what had happened only to notice that the memories were all twisted. It was rather amusing to watch and Gerry thought he’d kiss Michael for this later. 

He could feel the warm buzzing from the walls more strongly, the man’s face twisting into something fearful as he looked around himself again, frowning, before looking back at Gerry. Gerry’s sight really seemed to relax him. Gerry hoped to change that soon enough.

Gerry’s own frown intensified, and he looked somewhat put off on top of annoyed now. “I have no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

The man’s face fell. “What..what do you mean? You’re...you’re here, too, you...you must have noticed, I...that...this place. It...it’s _wrong_.” He took a step towards Gerry, looking like he was considering reaching out.

Gerry raised an eyebrow and stepped back. “Look mate, I don’t know what you’re on about. Maybe you spent too much time looking at these or something,” he nodded towards the pictures. The man’s eyes followed and the confusion was clear on his face. He was probably wondering how long he _had_ been looking at them. Gerry waited until he looked back at him before continuing, hand on the doorknob that wasn’t there. “You should probably take a break, get some air.” 

The door creaked as he opened it and the man’s jaw dropped as he watched, frozen, Gerry apparently disappearing right through the solid wall that was for some reason sounding like a door.

He only snapped out of his shock when he heard the distinct noise of a door closing, for the second time now in a way that filled him with dread and fear, and he threw himself at the patch of wall where Gerry had just walked through and banged his fists against it and shouted. 

He did so even after he was sure he must have had imagined the goth, after his hands were starting to hurt and his vision was going blurry with tears. He didn’t know why he was so dead-set on this wall specifically, but he felt like it was his only hope and so he threw himself against it as if to force a door open.

*

“ _That_ was delightful,” was what greeted Gerry when he stepped through the door and back into whatever corner of the hallway Michael had been watching from. He took its outstretched hand and smiled up at it.

“It was fun. Though he would have probably noticed something’s off if we had been outside, to be honest.” Gerry watched as Michael kissed the back of his hand, and it felt warm, so pleasantly warm. Everything seemed to feel like that right now. “It’s easy to keep up the looks, but I’m not sure about the general...vibe, yet.”

“It’s difficult to tell in here.” Michael said with a grin, pulling him closer.

"I think I feel it now. The fear.” Gerry mumbled, licking his lips. “Properly, I mean.” 

"And?"

"It feels...good.” He looked up at it through his lashes, grin wide. “Invigorating."

Michael bent down for a short kiss, squeezing his hand. Gerry followed it as it pulled away, chasing that pleasant, buzzing warmth. "You taste of it…." 

Michael’s eyes were impossibly wide and Gerry couldn’t tell if it was excitement or something else, or both. "You, too."

He didn’t get to think much about its meaning because Michael pulled him into another kiss, hand cupping the back of his head, long fingers curling around his neck. Gerry’s hands came to its face, and there, too, he felt the same tingling sensation, not just the usual buzzing static but the same filling buzzing he was feeling all around him, inside him, too. The mixture of both felt so good against Gerry’s fingers, his lips and it was impossible to stop, not when there could be more, so much more of it.

The wall was the floor now, maybe, and Gerry’s body melted, fit itself perfectly against Michael's, leaning into those long fingers that were snaking their way all over his body, driving Gerry insane in the best way. Gerry couldn’t remember when their clothes had gone, but he was glad for it, because every point of contact with Michael’s skin filled him with that intoxicating sensation and he pressed himself closer, or maybe it was Michael’s doing. It didn’t matter.

Gerry didn’t necessarily break the kiss to ask, "Is this how it feels every time?"

Michael’s lips were vibrating under his, the way it sometimes did when it was starting to dissolve. Its eyes were bright and alight when they met Gerry’s, shapes vibrating, undulating.

"It's just the beginning,” it said, moving Gerry’s twisting hair to the side to kiss his neck, his shoulder. 

Michael wasn’t lying, but this was different for it, too. Feeding was always exhilarating when it started, but it hadn’t considered the fact that Gerry would be radiating with it, too, that it would mix so wonderfully with the usual sensation of Gerry’s skin against Michael’s, that it would ooze off Gerry’s soft lips, combining with the taste Michael already couldn't seem to get enough of. Michael was floating.

Gerry didn't know whether Michael meant that it was just the beginning of feeding that felt like this, or that it would get even more intense, but he didn’t really care, not when Michael’s teeth were scraping his shoulder, tongue leaving that warm buzz wherever it touched skin, making Gerry hum, gasp, his mind emptying, getting lost in sensation.

He moved one of his knees between Michael’s undulating legs and it groaned, a sound between animal and engine if both noises were forced through a running fan at the same time, its fingers digging into Gerry’s skin, disappearing in it as it yielded. It was a horrendous noise and Gerry chased it, pressing his mouth against its open one, tongues meeting and twisting around each other eagerly.

*

The man froze at the strange noise that seemed to be coming from everywhere, echoing off the wall. He wiped his tears away and scrambled up from his crumbled up position, suddenly aware of his sore hands and throat, and the fact that _there was no escape_. The noise came again - or maybe not quite, it sounded different. Though what did that word even mean by now? - and he jumped again, cold dread filling him at the notion of what creature could possibly sound like this. Before he could consider which way to go - everything looked the same anyways - he bolted down whichever direction he looked at first, a new wave of terror running through him as the walls melted around him, the carpet reaching out to grab his feet.

*

Gerry felt drunk on it, a new surge of ecstasy temporarily filling his eyes with shapes and colours - or maybe that was Michael’s body dissolving - making teeth sharper as he bit Michael’s lip, drawing something akin to a whine from it as Michael was barely managing to keep some sort of shape as it arched into Gerry's hands and body and teeth. 

**Author's Note:**

> I guess technically this would be part 2, but I strongly disbelieve in chronology.


End file.
